Did Alien Life Evolve Just After the Big Bang?

[Jesus Malverde]

Earthlings may be extreme latecomers to a universe full of life, with alien microbes possibly teeming on exoplanets beginning just 15 million years after the Big Bang, new research suggests.

Traditionally, astrobiologists keen on solving the mystery of the origin of life in the universe look for planets in habitable zones around stars. Also known as Goldilocks zones, these regions are considered to be just the right distance away from stars for liquid water, a pre-requisite for life as we know it, to exist.

But even exoplanets that orbit far beyond the habitable zone may have been able to support life in the distant past, warmed by the relic radiation left over from the Big Bang that created the universe 13.8 billion years ago, says Harvard astrophysicist Abraham Loeb.

For comparison, the earliest evidence of life on Earth dates from 3.8 billion years ago, about 700 million years after our planet formed.

http://www.space.com/24496-universe-alien-life-habitability-big-bang.html

[RKP5637]

1. I often think of humans as being at the bottom of the hierarchy of the universe. As a

collective society many are damn fools.

[randome]

9. Yeah, well, compared to what?

[hr][font color="blue"][center]I'm always right. When I'm wrong I admit it.
So then I'm right about being wrong.[/center][/font][hr]

[RKP5637]

12. That, randome, is an excellent question! I doubt any of us will be around when that one is answered.

[Fumesucker]

2. Long long ago in Galaxy far far away

[edhopper]

3. Without doing sufficient research

I seem to remember reading that some of the heavier elements becoming more plentiful as the Universe aged were important for life.
On the other hand the beginning of life on Earth happened so early that one can postulate that the development of life is not as difficult as one might think.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

4. We think we're unique and important because we tell ourselves we are.

When, in fact, we're a flash-in-the-pan species on a speck in an unremarkable galaxy among billions of other galaxies which is situated in what is probably a zillion other unremarkable universes.

[RKP5637]

11. Agree so much! Some reference everything from our perspective which is fallacious thinking IMO.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

5. Alien Life, starring Patrick Warburton and Tim Allen. Coming this Fall at 9:30 on CBS. nt

[GeorgeGist]

6. Alien from what ...

Non-alien life?

[hobbit709]

7. highly unlikely unless alien life is composed of hydrogen and helium.

Any element higher than iron would take a supernova to create.

[CBGLuthier]

8. The article addresses that

But Loeb says that rare "islands" packed with denser matter may have existed in the early universe, and massive, short-lived stars could have formed in them earlier than expected. Explosions of these stars could have seeded the cosmos with heavy elements, and the very first rocky planets would have been born.

He may be wrong but he is not ignorant of basic theory.

I assumed it would answer that. After all, these people are quite aware of the standard model and the requirement for the creation of heavier elements. They are scientists.

[Motown_Johnny]

10. No

The early universe had only Hydrogen and Helium. Heavier elements were not in existence until after stars converted the lighter elements to heavier ones.

Life, as we understand it, could not possibly have existed "just after the big bang".

[KamaAina]

13. You mean at 9:30 last night?

[polichick]

14. Love that show!